Steve Pearce gave up his congressional seat to run for Senate (not governor) to replace retiring Pete Domenici. It was a bad move on his part given that Heather Wilson gave up her seat to run for the same position. They beat each other up in the primary which he won, but he was defeated by Tom Udall, son of Stewart and radical liberal enviro-nazi. At the end of election day in NM, Obama beat McCain for president and Republicans went from 3 out of 5 seats in Washington to 0 out of 5. Some very bad decisions were made by state party leadership which may have been chaired by Allen Weh at the time, yes the person Susana beat on Tuesday.
They seem to make a lot of mistakes. I was so mad at Pearce and Wilson I was seeing red, one of them should have backed out and left the other unopposed in the primary but they were all about moving up and they just got moved out.
Oops, I meant Senator, of course. There was no gubernatorial election in NM in 2008.